What we owe our children

The end of the school day in Brownsville, Brooklyn. (Michael Scott Berman for New York Daily News)

I stirred up controversy last week when I proposed a plan to better educate our kids — and called on well-off New Yorkers to help pay for it.

The plan itself is straightforward: Start kids' education earlier and help them learn longer. This is where ambitious school systems everywhere are moving, and with good cause.

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According to the federal Department of Education, 60% of the jobs in the 21st century will require skills held by just 20% of today's workforce.

China will soon enroll 70% of its children in three years of pre-school to build basic skills. And schools abroad and here in the U.S. are adding hundreds of hours to the academic year to better prepare their young people for the modern economy.

New York City simply can't afford to be left behind.

Under my plan, New York City would provide full-day pre-kindergarten for every child who needs it — something 50,000 of the 68,000 kids eligible don't get today.

And to help our young people stay on the right path and firm up their academics, I am proposing innovative after-school programs to extend the school day for more than two-thirds of city middle schoolers from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

For kids, this means a solid educational foundation during those critical early years and support during that difficult middle school transition. For parents, this plan means peace of mind and a better shot at holding down a job.

The controversy that accompanied our plan didn't center on the merits of better educating our kids, but, rather, on how to pay for it.

I'm not the first to call for making pre-K truly universal or expanding after-school programs, but I am the first to have a real plan to cover the costs.

To jumpstart the transformation, I've called for a change in the city's income tax that would raise rates on New Yorkers earning more than $500,000 per year.

I'd ask those doing well to pay more for five years, a reasonable time-frame to find savings within existing government programs while also working with labor to reduce the ever-rising pension and healthcare costs for municipal employees.

This approach is focused on fairness. Since the recession started, incomes have fallen for all but the highest earners. The best-off won't be the only New Yorkers with skin in this game, but it's only right they should be the first asked to contribute.

As leaders and employers who need our city to build a strong, educated workforce, they have as much a stake in the success of our youngest generation as anyone. They need skilled workers. They need a safe city where everyone has a shot at making it.

Yet Mayor Bloomberg, true to form, is utterly dismissive of the idea. Using the kind of derisive talk that has marked his third term, he labeled it "about as dumb a policy as I can think of," one that would drive the affluent out of New York City.

But Bloomberg conveniently overlooks the fact that the 4.3% rate for top brackets in my plan is actually less than the 4.5% rate he implemented between 2003 and 2005 to fill a budget gap.

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A similar surcharge in the 1990s that affected all incomes also topped out at 4.5% for the highest earners — again, lower than the rate I have proposed. Back then, the additional revenue funded 4,000 new police officers and after-school programs for at-risk kids, blunting a rise in crime.

Of course, there was the same fear-mongering that the rich would flee the city, with their taxable income in tow. But 20 years later, there's still no evidence to support that argument.

What we do know is that the wise investment we made kick-started a decades-long reduction in crime that's held to this day — and all New Yorkers, rich and poor, are better off for it.

We need to be just as bold and forward-looking today. The investments I've called for in early education and after-school are about our long-term economic stability, as well as the economic future of our young people. That's a serious debate worth having. New Yorkers deserve more than catchphrases with so much at stake.

The mayor can ridicule my plan all he wants. But nay-saying isn't going to help New York City and our families hold ground in an increasingly competitive world.

It's time for bold strokes — and for the top-earning residents of New York to help lead the way.